Blood Games

    ‘Yeah,’ Helen said. ‘You’re the best friends I’ve ever had. I don’t know what I’m gonna do…’ Her voice broke.

    Abilene squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’ll do fine.’

    ‘I’ll miss you all so much.’

    ‘Hey, let’s not get all weepy,’ Finley said. ‘This ain’t a wake, for Christsake.’

    ‘I know, I know, but…’

    ‘Here’s to all the great times we’ve had,’ Cora said, hoisting her glass again.

    ‘They’re all over,’ Helen muttered. ‘We’ll probably never see each other again.’

    ‘Sure we will,’ Abilene told her. ‘Hell, you’re gonna come to my wedding, aren’t you?’

    ‘Hickok, you’re such an optimist.’

    ‘We’ll get married one of these days. And all of you’d better show up.’

    ‘There’ll be plenty of chances to get together,’ Cora said, nodding at Helen.

    ‘It won’t be the same.’

    ‘Everything changes,’ Abilene said.

    From the hurt look on Helen’s face, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

    ‘I mean, that’s life. But the changes don’t have to be bad. There’s no law that says we can’t visit each other from time to time and…’

    ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Vivian said. She’d been sitting in silence, staring into her drink.

    ‘Hold it,’ Finley said. ‘We’d better jot this down for posterity. Better yet…’ She hopped up from her cushion on the floor, hurried across the room, and snatched her video camera off the dining table.

    ‘Give it a break,’ Cora protested.

    ‘No, come on,’ Vivian said. ‘We aren’t dressed.’

    ‘Sure you are. Unlike the first time I taped you.’

    ‘You’ve gotten rid of that, haven’t you?’ Abilene asked. ‘Surely you jest.’ She raised the viewfinder to her eye and started taping. ‘Just act natural, babes. You look great. What was your big idea, Viv?’

    Vivian, in a sheer black nightgown, frowned at the lens and covered her breasts with the arm that wasn’t busy holding her champagne glass.

    ‘Don’t worry. Nobody’ll ever see it but us.’

    ‘So you say,’ Cora remarked. She wore only an oversized T-shirt.

    Helen, sitting on a sofa and dressed in a low-cut nightie, reached out and grabbed a corduroy pillow and clutched it to her chest.

    At least I’m okay, Abilene thought. She was wearing pajamas. They belonged to Harris. The morning after her first night with him, she’d worn the bottoms and he’d worn the top while she made instant coffee in the motel room. By the time they’d gotten around to drinking the coffee, it had been cold.

    Later, she’d packed the pajamas in her overnight bag and he’d laughed. She’d had them ever since.

    Finley, wandering about the room and taping everyone from different angles, said, ‘One of these days, we’ll get together and watch all this stuff and have a few laughs.’

    ‘Sure,’ Helen muttered.

    ‘Which brings us to my idea,’ Vivian said. ‘Remember? My idea?’

    Finley zoomed in on her. ‘Spit it out.’

    ‘Well…’

    Finley turned the camera away to catch Cora.

    Cora, on her knees, scurried about the floor and poured more champagne into all the glasses.

    Vivian waited until hers was full. She took a drink, then said, ‘Anyway. You know that play, Same Time Next Year?”

    ‘A movie,’ Finley corrected, swinging the camera toward Vivian.

    ‘It was a play first.’

    ‘I haven’t seen it,’ Helen said.

    ‘You wouldn’t have liked it,’ Abilene told her. ‘Nobody gets chopped up.’

    Helen almost smiled.

    ‘Anyway,’ Vivian continued, ‘it’s about this man and woman who fall in love. They can’t marry each other, so they meet at a certain place once each year.

    ‘Hence the title,’ Finley said.

    ‘No matter what’s going on in their regular lives, they always show up and spend this one weekend together. Anyway, here’s the thing. We could do something like that.’

    A smile spread across Helen’s face. ‘Hey, that’d be neat.’

    ‘That’s a great idea! ’ Cora blurted.

    ‘Yeah!’ Abilene said. ‘We’d have to really do it, though.’

    ‘Yeah,’ Cora agreed. ‘No matter what. Jobs, families. Nothing can get in the way. Once a year, we meet somewhere. Just the five of us.’

    ‘Right,’ Vivian said. ‘No husbands, no loverboys, none of that.’

    ‘They’d put a cramp in our style,’ Cora said.

    Helen laughed.

    ‘We’ll watch all the old tapes of our adventures,’ Finley said.

    ‘Whoa! ’ Abilene gasped. ‘In that case, no husbands for sure! ’

    ‘And we’ll have new adventures,’ Finley added. ‘New and daring exploits.’

    Cora smirked. ‘Like what?’

    ‘I don’t know. We’ll think of things.’

    ‘I know,’ Abilene said. ‘We can take turns thinking up exploits. Each year, it’ll be someone else’s turn to arrange the whole thing. We’ll all agree on whatever weekend…’

    ‘What kind of adventure can you have over a weekend?’ Finley complained. ‘Maybe we should try for a whole week.’

    ‘A week it is,’ Cora said.

    ‘This is great,’ Helen said. She polished off her champagne, tossed her pillow aside and leaned toward Cora with her glass. Cora crawled over and filled her up. ‘All of a sudden, it’s like everything isn’t over anymore. You know? This is great.’

    ‘Who goes first?’ Cora asked, and raised the bottle to her mouth.

    ‘The whole thing’s Vivian’s idea,’ Abilene pointed out.

    Vivian, smiling pleasantly, eased backward. She stretched out on the floor, glass resting on her belly, and crossed her feet at the ankles. ‘So I get to go first?’

    ‘Right,’ Abilene said.

    ‘We’ll all do whatever I want?’

    ‘Within reason.’

    ‘Fuck that,’ Finley said. ‘A choice oughta be a choice. It’s her adventure. We all have to do whatever she wants, whether we like it or not.’

    ‘A heavy responsibility,’ Vivian said, smiling at the ceiling.

    Cora popped a cork from a fresh bottle. It shot past Helen’s face. ‘Be careful. You’ll put someone’s eye out.’ She shut one eye and started giggling.

    ‘I don’t know,’ Vivian said.

    ‘You’ve got all year to think about it,’ Abilene told her.

    ‘And please,’ Finley said, ‘try to come up with something that won’t bore us all to death.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE